Hawks and Swans welcome back stars, Cox in for Eagles
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A big week of ins and outs ahead of round 19 in the AFL, with Hawthorn's Josh Gibson and Sydney's Kurt Tippett for their blockbuster clash, while veteran Dean Cox joins Eagles teammate Josh Kennedy on the returner's list.

IT WAS former Swans hard nut Jude Bolton who once quipped about Luke Parker: “You could hit him over the head with a block of wood and he’d get up.’’

The running joke at Sydney’s SCG headquarters is that 21-year-old Parker is such a ferocious and rugged unit that they refer to him as “Jude Bolton with hair’’.

“To be compared with a bloke like Jude Bolton, who’s just a champion of the game and a great bloke, is an honour,’’ Parker said. “For me it’s a great feeling to be compared to a player like that.’’

Not surprisingly then, Parker, a Langwarrin boy who grew up barracking for Carlton, says that one of the footballers he modelled himself on as a junior is the man who will captain the Swans’ opponent at the MCG tonight, Hawthorn’s Luke Hodge.

“I’m not the quickest bloke and I’m not the tallest bloke, so I guess I have to be pretty hard at it,’’ Parker said.

“What I like about the game is the physical contact and growing up it was players like Hodgey and Jimmy Bartel who were the ones I really admired.’’

Parker has won widespread admiration this year for his contribution to the Swans’ impressive 13-3 start, averaging 25 possessions (11.5 of them contested) from his 16 matches.

He has also clocked up Bolton-like figures of six tackles per game.

His uncompromising approach has been evident ever since his 2011 debut.

In just his 14th game — the 2012 season opener against Greater Western Sydney — Parker was blindsided in the first quarter by a James McDonald bump that cracked his jaw.

After the match, coach John Longmire praised Parker for how he dealt with the bump.

“For me the big statement out of the game was a 19-year-old that was cleaned up and had an injury being able to play the rest of the game out and play really well,” Longmire said.

“That’s the statement that matters to me and to Luke’s teammates. He’s a super tough kid who was cleaned up, obviously injured, but able to keep playing and play really well.”

Parker said it was simply an extension of the no-fuss approach he had learned as a junior with the Langwarrin Kangaroos, where he had won eight consecutive club best-and-fairests and four premierships.

“For me, I don’t ever want to look weak on a footy field, so no matter what it is I’ll try to get straight back up, no matter how hard you get hit,’’ he said.

“I try to keep backing it up and just go in hard for the next contest.’’

Parker famously played in the match after the McDonald hit.

With a split round meaning a weekend off between games, he headed back home to the Mornington Peninsula where his father put him through an informal fitness test.

“His dad planted one on his chin and his dad gave him the all clear,’’ Longmire said at the time.

“I think it was just a muck around and his dad asked him how he was going. He said ‘pretty well’ and I think his dad just wanted to make sure he was OK. It probably isn’t any wonder Luke goes for the ball the way he does.”

Parker had previously suffered a far more severe broken jaw while co-captaining Dandenong Stingrays in the TAC U18 Cup, which might help explain why he was taken so late in the 2010 AFL national draft.

He had made that year’s TAC Cup team of the year, and “played a few all right games’’ for the Vic Country team that won that year’s national title.

But the jaw surgery affected his ability to participate in the draft camp, and orthodontic braces made him slightly embarrassed when he spoke to AFL recruiters.

He was touted as a potential first-round draft pick, but ended being the Swans’ second-round selection (at pick 40) behind Jed Lamb.

Parker, who watched the draft unfold on Foxtel at home with his family and his best mate Taylor Banks, said he was just happy to have his name read out.

“A few clubs said they were keen and might take me with their picks, and then those picks went by,’’ he recalled.

“I started slowly slipping through, so I was beginning to panic that I might not get picked and started to get a bit nervy. I was absolutely rapt when Sydney called out my name and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

“I think I was drafted on the Thursday and was up there on the Sunday, then training on the Monday.’’

So rapid was his progress that just two years later, in his 32nd AFL game, he was part of the Swans team that won the 2012 Grand Final against Hawthorn.

“A lot of blokes go through an AFL career and don’t even get to play finals, so to win a premiership in my second year is something that I’ll cherish forever,’’ said Parker, who had been to only one AFL Grand Final in his life, Collingwood’s 2010 win over St Kilda.

“To walk out on to the ground and not see one empty seat in the whole MCG was just crazy.’’

So much does Parker enjoy playing for the Swans that he recently signed a contract extension that takes him through to the end of 2016, ruling out any Victorian club’s come-home-factor aspirations — “it’s too cold down there, anyway,’’ he laughed.

“It’s pretty good up here in Sydney. Nobody really notices you unless you’re walking down the street with Buddy or Goodesy. So I get to go about my everyday life without anyone paying any attention. That’s great because it means you can switch off. ‘’

He lives just a kilometre from one of Sydney’s eastern beaches, and spends his spare time walking on the sand with the latest love of his life, his French mastiff puppy.

“She’s putting on one or two kilos a month — she’s up to 27 kilos but I reckon she’s only halfway grown.’’

Right now, though, his mind is on the showdown against the Hawks.

“They’ve been the benchmark of the competition for about the past five years,’’ he said.

“You know you’re not going to get any second chances with them; if you make a mistake they’ll make you pay.

“That’s what the best teams do to you and that’s what we’ve got to minimise on Saturday night. It’s going to take four quarters to win it. Hopefully we can come out and take it to them right from the start, but we know it’s going to take a massive effort.”

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